Graduate Profile: Alexandra Wilds '16

Alexandra Wilds (Nathan Oldham/UConn School of Business)

Alexandra Wilds: Management
The Quest for Quality Health Care Worldwide is This Graduate’s Career Focus

“I know you’re all here to make money,” said the business professor teaching an introductory course at the university that Alexandra Wilds ’16 attended during freshman year.

And Wilds got a lump in her throat. A very big lump. Because her reason for pursuing a business education wasn’t to seek wealth or power, but to focus on how corporations can bring about social change in the world.

By sophomore year, Wilds had transferred to UConn, where she found professors and students alike who looked at business as a catalyst for good. This spring she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in management.

“I’m interested in corporate social responsibility, specifically the mutual dependence between corporations and society,” she said. “I’ll be working at Aetna Health Care and exploring this relationship from a health-insurance perspective.”

“On a global scale, I’m interested in the lack of access to healthcare. How can we provide medical care to people who cannot afford it?,” she said. “Corporations have a big influence on policy and, unfortunately, change is slower than the world needs it to be.”

Wilds, a native of Southbury, Conn., has had a variety of social-action internships during the last four years, including working with the Connecticut Public Interest Research Group to promote an expanded bottle bill; interning with AmeriCares to coordinate medicine donations; and helping KidSafe develop a program for young adults to learn life-skills.

For the international academic publication Group and Organizational Management, Wilds created its first social media initiative. She also served as an ambassador for the School of Business’ management program.

Despite her hectic schedule, Wilds spent the fall semester of her junior year in Barcelona.

“It was such a beautiful city and great culture. I ‘learned while playing.’ I saw so many new things,” she said. “In this day and age all companies have a global influence and they like to see that prospective employees have a different perspective.”

As a senior, she jumped hurdles for the first time as a member of the Women’s Track Club, and traveled to Indiana for a national competition. “I really enjoy running and it was nice to focus on something outside school work,” she said. “Our team saying is, ‘We hurdle because running is just too easy!'”

Her favorite memory of UConn will always be the April 2014 double national basketball championships when both the men’s and women’s teams were victorious.

Leaving the University won’t be easy, she said.

“I think what I’ll miss the most about UConn is being around such great, intelligent people all the time and hearing different perspectives,” Wilds said. “My generation is very enthusiastic and passionate and being around other students ignites that excitement.”